Tagged and Released

Sarah Terez Rosenblum

In the Los Angeles apartment I’d moved into only weeks earlier, still replete with remnants of Fran and Parker's shared life, two fat cats waddled to the bedroom door every night at ten expecting to climb into bed with Fran. But Fran was gone. So was the bed. Soon the cats were gone as well. I'm allergic. Actually I’m only conceptually allergic, a concept too complicated for most people to understand. Parker got it, which meant she got me, and so I moved in. I got Parker too, but I’m not as patient as she. Although I understood the restless dissatisfaction which inspired her habitual home improvements, I was not similarly supportive. I’m as allergic to Home Depot as I am to cats.

Parker thought I'd be happy if we had a place in the bathroom to stack our shampoo and conditioner, our lotion and shaving cream. I didn't care about any of that, just wanted her to fuck me up the winding staircase in my torso, beyond the trapped door between my throat and my brain, through the whirring chaos of my mind and out the top of my head, outside where it was peaceful; dark and breezy. I thought, how horrible to be dependent on another person to meet these essential needs, especially when that person appeared increasingly obsessed with shelf paper.

One evening as I sat on Fran’s worn leather couch watching Parker struggle to assemble metal shelves from Ikea, I sucked on a grape flavored Popsicle and worked on a picture in my mind of Parker’s cruel face as she forcibly penetrated me with one of the shelves’ cool metal bars: She was a brutal army sergeant, driven mad by the war, while I was an indigenous individual, innocent, but deserving of whatever she gave.

Instead of fucking me, she put down the bar and said, "I've never dated anyone named Stephanie."

"Okay." I said. "Neither have I."

"I want to make sure you know that right up front."

"Okay."

"Because I want to tell you something."

Any sentence Parker began could end somewhere I didn't want it to, but those starting "I want to tell you something" demonstrated particular volatility. So far she'd followed "I want to tell you something" with "I lied, Fran didn't withhold sex, I did," and "You need to switch seats with me before we pull over because my license is expired."

"Go on," I said.

"Sometimes I want to call you Stephanie. I know that's not your name. It's no one else's I know either."

Her bright blue eyes were earnest, and what she said sounded right. I felt recognized, as if brought abruptly into focus.

Turned out Stephanie was a mouse nee Steffie La Roue, one hailing from the mythical land of Larouvia. A princess there, one foggy afternoon Stephanie had journeyed deep into the forest girding her land’s proud border and lost her way. Unable to return, she’d been reduced to scrabbling through our kitchen at night, picking chocolate chips out of cookies and snatching scraps of food from the floor. Stephanie's favorite color was pink. Scrawny, she nonetheless felt rotund and always wore ballet slippers. Her favorite place was Whole Foods and she pronounced it incorrectly.   

"Ticka ticka ticka pink candy." Parker said, in imitation, shaking her head, fluttering her eyelashes. "Ticka ticka ticka strawberry lipgloss and beautiful dresses. Ticka ticka Ho Foods!”

Stephanie had a thing for older butch women who looked like they might take care of her. Walking down the street, Parker's hand curved and possessive at the back of my neck, Stephanie's eyes might wander. "Watch it, Steph," Parker would say, "Or, I see you, Stephanie." Stephanie tittered and blushed, delighted to have her behavior predicted, thrilled to be controlled.

Shortly, my retina detached and I took up spinning. Although neither had anything to do with the other, each had something to do with sex. Three days after eye surgery, zonked on Darvocet, I pushed Parker away. She hadn't initiated intercourse in months, but somehow my ailing body stimulated her. She reached to fondle my breasts.

"Are you kidding?" I peered at her through my left eye, my right bandaged and bruised.

"You look so helpless.” She ground against my leg. “Needy too.”

“I feel like someone has jammed glass through my eyeball," I said. "I'm not even supposed to tip my head back to shower.”

My vision was blurry, but I swear Parker licked her lips.

“I may never have sex again. Probably my rich family hired you to look after me. Most likely I’m your ward."

After Stephanie became Parker's ward, and when I recovered, I started going to spinning classes at Gold's Gym. Stephanie was reluctant at first; she’d been stuck in a rut, accustomed to running on a treadmill which she called “my wheel.”

But Parker knew what Stephanie needed better than Steph herself. She snagged Stephanie by the scruff of her neck.

"Stephanie T. Mouse,” Parker admonished, “go to your new wheel!"

Stephie twisted and struggled and finally grew limp. Then she went to spinning class, head down, ears forward, twisting a silken scrap of her tattered tutu between her bony fingers.

Of course Parker was right. The class set Stephanie’s fidgety limbs to rest; it was just what she needed to numb her. When Stephanie wanted Parker to deliver her from her mind’s cramped confines to the great open maw of the sky, she still called "Toad! Toad! Come and do my bidding,” but the calls were less frequent; Steph was so tired after class. Parker still picked Stephanie up after work; she still ironed Stephanie's clothes, tinkered with the hinged legs of Stephanie’s vanity table, and sent her food back for her in restaurants. Stephanie was a very picky eater. But Parker no longer felt captive to Stephanie’s demands. Stephanie’s attention was elsewhere. She had begun to yearn for her spinning instructors.

There was Tom, the forty-year-old business man who called Steph “baby” and believed against all odds that the impressive circumference of his biceps made up for his modest stature. There was Jesse, the petite, tattooed Latina who slapped Stephanie’s ass as she strode between the bikes. And of course there was Ally, stick thin and vibrant, her southern drawl linking each of her words like a spider’s graceful web. Stephanie swooned in her presence, and like any good bottom she wanted to please. She became a star pupil and I dropped twenty pounds. When I’d grown as spindly as Stephanie, Parker bought Steph new pink workout clothes and silver spinning shoes. Stephanie smiled, pleased.

 “My slippers,” she said. “Thank you, dear Toad. And now I’m off to bed.”

 "I could never leave you," Parker assured herself, clutching me against her as we fell asleep on the futon. We never replaced Fran’s bed. "There are too many of you to leave."

When Parker left, Stephanie worried that no one would open doors for her or acknowledge her royal birthright. As it turned out, she didn't have to fret; the women I attract always call me princess. I moved cross country and found a new gym. Although the spinning classes weren’t up to Stephanie’s So Cal standards, she promised to make do. Hoping to appease her, I took her to Starbucks after class.

“It’s right down the street.” I pointed out hopefully. Stephanie scoffed. “In Laruvia-“

“You mean Los Angeles.” I corrected.

“I mean Laruvia.” She insisted. “Laruvia is anywhere I’d rather be!”

“Fine.” I glanced apologetically at the barista. Stephanie always took her sweet time.

“Back home in Laruvia, the Starbucks was in the same mansion as my gym. Ho Foods was there too. Toad ran the Starbucks so I could taste everything first. Now like a commoner I must wait for mass market release.” Stephanie shook her petulant head. “And where is Ho Foods? That’s another question I have. I miss my bulk bin. Where will I sleep if not with the malted milk balls?”

“I know, Stephanie. I miss the free samples too.” I wished I were Parker. She knew how to handle a peevish mouse. “I used to date a Starbucks Manager,” I explained to the girl behind the counter. “I don’t miss her though. Well, sometimes I do.”

Stephanie tugged at my sleeve. “Did you get it with whipped cream?”

“Yes.”

“But is it fat free? I won’t drink it if it isn’t fat free. My Toad who is Former would know that.” She turned to the barista, “I once had a Toad to do my bidding. Now she’s all that’s left. I don’t miss him though. Well, sometimes I do.”

I should have known better than to ask. “When do you miss your Toad-”

“My Former Toad.”

I handed her a napkin, she had whipped cream all over her upper lip.

“When do you miss your Former Toad?”

“Not so often.” Stephanie thumped one foot against the condiment bar. “I only miss him when the new one fucks me.” She looked sorry to have been forced to say it.

“It’s ok,” I said, “I miss him then too.”

One day I arrived at my new gym wearing Stephie's pink shorts and my white jogging shoes to find the doors closed and the facility dark. Around me people stared at the locked building in horror. Some cried. Others looked quietly stunned. They gathered in a loose semi-circle, warming themselves in faery cell phone light. The twin towers had fallen to bits around their ankles; they wanted to share and hug and grow.

Stephanie knew they couldn’t help her or anyone but themselves. She turned and ran. She ran for her usual forty-five minutes. She ran in ninety degree heat. She thought nothing of it, until she collapsed on my apartment’s bald lawn. When she started to whimper, I promised her the gym would reopen the next day. Of course I knew the truth, I'd read the sign that Stephanie could not. I knew the world had come to an end.

We climbed the steep stairs to my new girlfriend, found her hammering one thing to another.

"Don't worry, Princess," she said, “"The gym will most likely reopen. If not, you’ll find yourself another.”

My girlfriend was right, but Stephanie pulled my ear to her lips and whispered, “She doesn’t truly understand.”

In a week the gym would reopen, surprising even me, but before that, impatient Stephie took matters into her own ticklish paws. She joined a bare-bones gym up the street, no matter the stained rugs or the thick necked men who lifted and heaved. Mission accomplished, she snapped open her little pink phone. Voicemail is frowned upon in Larouvia, but Steph’s time in Los Angeles had taught her what to do.

"I see, Toad, that you no longer answer your phone for me, Toad. Instead the strange cold woman tells me to leave a message at the tone. Is “tone” another word for Toad, Toad?  I think she may be speaking in code, Toad. No matter. I know that you are not my own Toad. You belong to the fat one with the shiny blond hair. Incidentally, you should advise her, Toad, not to wear a top that’s a tube. Is tube another word for Toad, Toad? No matter. Your new Mistress is trashy and pale except where her skin is streaked with orange. Is that self-tanner? How ordinary. No matter. I know you must, deep in your soul, Toad--do Toads have souls, Toad--deep in your gullet then, I know you still wonder, I know you still care what becomes of Stephie La Rue.

Well, have I had a week, Toad! I wouldn’t want you to panic. I wouldn’t want you to leave your blond gargoyle, purchase a ticket and fly to my aid, so I’ll say first that disaster was averted. But, listen as I whisper: They shut down my wheel. No! Stay where you are, because on my own, with no Toad to guide me, I found a replacement. Just as you traded a princess for a tawdry blond (but no matter), I swapped a state of the art Wheel House with a shack up the street. The wheels are shameful, a dog barks in the back. No fluffy towels. No groveling greeter, but I have made do. Such is my strength and resilience.

***